Horizons for Homeless Children

Since 2015, I have been the Creative Manager of Horizons for Homeless Children. The keeper of branding, and creator of all marketing/fundraising/educational materials. This has been the job where I feel I've given the most back to the world, and I'm very proud of what I've done here.

Parent Testimonials

This is a playlist of testimonials by our children's families about how we've helped them in their lives.

Horizons Videos

This is a playlist of our introductory videos, explaining each area of our work in it's own short video.

PAL Academy

A series of training videos for our PALs (volunteers).

Teach With Horizons

This is a recruiting video for the 'tough but rewarding' field of early education, with the added challenge of doing it for a homeless population. The video attempts to balance the very real rewarding aspect of the job with the fact that it isn't easy.

Print Campaigns

I have led the creative for dozens of print and mail campaigns at Horizons. Each one asks that I find a new way to catch the potential donor's eye, and showcases my range and flexibility.

Window Faces

One of my charges for our events is to "bring the kids into the event," which is not possible because we serve a very vulnerable demographic, so I have found many creative ways to do just that. In this case, I treated out event columns as windows, and printed larger-than-life photos of our kids smooshed against windows, as if they were looking in at our event. Each photo captures a different kid and their very different and amazing personalities.

This quote was the introduction to our interactive are at our annual gala. I designed the concept and printed the whiteboard, meant to reference a higher-ed classroom in contrast to the idea of play as learning.

Shelter Outline

One way of bringing people into the stark reality that is shelter life was to re-create the floor-plan on the floor of our gala in 1:1 scale. Standing in the middle of this life-sized blueprint was a humbling reminder of how lucky the gala-goers really are.

360 Video Experience

As part of my attempt to bring the audience into our centers, I created a series of 360 degree videos that could be navigated on a very large video wall (on the left).

Featured Photos

Each event features a lot of large photographs to surround the guests with our children, further keeping them in the minds and in the sapece.

Grand Circle Travel/OAT

For three years I was a video producer for the connected travel companies of Grand Circle Travel, Overseas Adventure Travel, and Grand Circle Cruise Line. I produced close to 300 videos during my time there, a great deal in person, and many others through a remote process of hiring remotely, direction calls, and receiving footage via mail. I was a key part in creating and implementing that process.

Milsky Private Departures

This was a video where I discovered a very emotional story in the process of gathering marketing content, and fought to keep the emotional story in the cut. I created two versions of the video and this one -- which included the story about memorializing their mother/grandmother and a family reunion -- was chosen unanimously.

Sue Rickert's Story

This video is one of my favorite videos from my time at this company. Susan is a wonderful human being with a heart-warming story.

Home-Hosted Parties

This video was created to play before "travel parties" which are meetings in people's homes or community centers where they tell people about the GCT/OAT trips. This video provided a standardized intro to tell people about the history and basics of the comapny.

A Trip to Cuba

This was a trip that the Grand Circle Foundation offered to Cuba that I was lucky (and skilled) enough to get to film. All of the footage is mine, and the edits were done under my supervision and direction.

Italy and France Cruise

This was a trip that Grand Circle Cruise Line offered, sailing through Italy and France that I was lucky (and skilled) enough to get to film. All of the footage is mine, and the edits were done under my supervision and direction.

Automated trip preview template

We had an automated video vendor that had a quite extreme turnaround of 3 weeks on new videos, so I created a templated temporary video style that could be used in their place. This came in extremely useful for a bunch of short-term-need videos while that process was eventually optimized.

Trip Leader Skit

Our sales people travel the country doing events with our travelers and wanted a lighter video to get people in a good mood before they started the bulk of their presentation. I helped them to script out this sketch, and we filmed it while many of our actual Trip Leaders were in town for an annual meeting. It's become a well-loved video for our travelers.

Solo Travel

This video was created to explain the benefits of traveling with Grand Circle Travel or Overseas Adventure Travel as a solo traveler.

Traveler Protection insurance

This video is meant to explain the benefits of the company's Traveler Protection insurance.

OAT Good Buy Discount

This video describes our "Good Buy Discount," which was a savings program for pre-paying for your trip.

African Drumming Demo

It is a piece about a visiting African Drumming group that performed for travelers in our gallery while they learned about our African travel opportunities.

The OAT Difference

This was a video created to highlight the value and experiences that Overseas Adventure Travel provides more and better than any competitor.

ImprovBoston

For close to a year, I served as the interim graphic designer for ImprovBoston in Cambridge, MA, and in that position I created many posters and marketing materials that I am very proud of to this day.

Short Documentaries

As a freelancer and in my own creative pursuits, I've shot a great deal of short documentaries. Here are some examples.

Community And Veterans Bike Together On The Road To Recovery

I directed, shot and edited this piece.

Cops Stop And Shop With Kids In Need

I directed, shot and edited this piece.

Smart Yoga Mat Promotes Growth And Learning For Kids With Special Needs

I directed, shot and edited this piece.

#Mommittment Bloggers Work To End Mom Shaming

I directed, shot, and edited this.

SCUL - Profiles at Artisan's Asylum; Somerville, MA

I directed, shot and edited this piece.

Dwaine's Big Game

I shot and edited this piece.

Izandla Ziyahlambana

I directed, shot and edited this piece. A State Department program partnering US health professionals with HIV/Aids clinics in South Africa as well as providing a technology center to a particularly impoverished area.

The Folklorist: The Cottingley Fairies

This is an example of my post-production work. I received the footage from NewTV and edited it into this final product alongside the NEWtv editing team.

The Folklorist: The Cardiff Giant

This is an example of my post-production work. I received the footage from NewTV and edited it into this final product alongside the NEWtv editing team.

Headshots

Creative Photography

I'm a trained photographer, and sometimes I actually use that skillset!

Comedy Videos

Sandwich Days presents... Santa Size Me

My entry for the contest from the Doug Benson podcast "Doug Loves Movies". Morgan Spurlock decides to see what would really happen if Santa ate all the cookies and milk that the world left out for him.

Take the Patience

This playlist is a web-series called "Take the Patience" that Chris Coxen and I co-created to re-enact stories from his life and travels. I did all of the production from shooting to graphic design to editing to the opening and closing music. It was a blast to work on.

Mixed Nuts

A weird short I made with some fellow comedians.

Electric Interludes - Barry Tattle

I directed, filmed and edited this. My favorite of Chris' characters is "Barry Tattle." He's a lounge singer who's always on his top game, but not quite on the same wavelength as reality. He's a real ladies man... sort of... at least he thinks of himself as the consummate ladies man. This was a fun but challenging video because he is having a conversation with regular person Chris Coxen (himself) during the entirety of the video. Enjoy!

Flacidia - The #1 Solution for EF

A fake ad for an anti-erectile drug ;)

The Auction

I directed, edited and filmed this. One of Chris' characters is a "Combat Dancer" named Danny Morsel, who was featured on an episode of the TV show "Last Comic Standing." In this one, we had to create a weird reality where the same doll is in every chair in the audience. This is a weird weird sketch, but one that I love a lot.

The Camaro Whisperer

I directed, edited and filmed this. One of Chris' characters is a man named "Ripps McCoxen." He's obsessed with "manliness" in the form of muscle cars and lifting weights, but always does it in the most unorthodox way possible. The dragging scene is Chris actually being dragged on what is essentially a sled made of a few pieces of lumber. It makes for a great stunt, but I had to ask him quite a few times if he was sure about doing it. In the end we filmed it relatively slow and then sped it up in post. Exciting! Death defying! Funny!

Current Eventuals - NSA - Still Family

Created for a weekly live sketch show at ImprovBoston around the height of the Edward Snowden/NSA story.